The various electric arc welders incorporated by reference herein and other electric arc welders control the welding process between the electrode and workpiece by a waveform and a polarity according to the requirements of the particular welding process. These requirements may also change according to whether solid wire or cored wire is used and based upon the diameter of the wire. Furthermore, the wire feed speed (WFS) is adjusted according to the particular welding process being performed by the electric arc welder. In the past, electric arc welders have been primarily developed for a dedicated welding process with parameters adjusted to change the process as desired by the welding engineer. However, with the advent of multi-purpose of welders of the type incorporated by reference herein, there has been no universal control arrangement to select one of several welding processes for the particular welders being developed using waveform technology and polarity signals. The different processes have been loaded into the welder by the welding engineer in a manner not necessarily giving universality to the newly developed electric arc welders.
The present invention relates to a novel device for selecting the welding process, as well as the polarity, from a single control module that is consistent in its ability to output waveforms and polarity information or signals to select one of several unique welding processes. When the term one of several welding processes is used, it means different types of welding processes such as MIG, MAG, stick, subarc and TIG, to name the basic processes. The invention relates to a select device usable for a three stage power source capable of waveform technology and AC or DC operation, as well as such a three stage welder with a dual mode chopper for the output stage or an inverter for the output stage. Such inverter has capabilities for performing AC and DC operations, as well as the capability of adjusting the shape of the waveform by a waveform signal. These types of electric arc welders do not have a selector device of the type to which the present invention is directed.